Sunday, 29 January 2006
6:00pm
S
o it's practically February. I've been working crazy hard on this feature film that is being produced by my school. Normally during this portion of the L.A. Film School Program, my class would be working as lower level crew members on the thesis films of the students who are going to be graduating six months ahead of us. But as things turned out, the May class is about half the size of my class, so there just weren't enough crew positions to go around. They ran into this situation in the last term as well, but what they did then was create a couple of shorts directed by faculty members. Normally the production period would be 5 weeks, with students working on a different thesis film each week. This time, rather than manufacture a few more shorts, they decided to try an experiment and try making a full length feature film over the course of the entire five weeks, with people rotating in and out as they went to work on other student thesis films. They hired some professional department heads for us to work under, and called in some talented LAFS graduates to sort of bridge the gap between us students and the professionals.
Although the producer said he wanted to avoid doing 12 hour workdays when we started, 12 hour workdays is pretty much what we've been doing. My official position on this film is Best Boy Grip. I tell people this, but most of the time they have no idea what a grip or a gaffer does, so I guess I'll explain real quick.
When it comes to setting up movie lights, there are two types of people that work on them, and they are called grips and gaffers (or electricians). The Director of Photography will come in and say "I want a [such and such type of light] right here, pointing that way. The electricians are the ones that have to figure out how to get power to that light without getting in the way of the shot, or overloading whatever power system we're using. The grips bring in all the accessories and do the fine tuning of the light to get it just right.
The head of the grip department is called the "Key Grip". My job as the "best boy" is to keep track of all the equipment we use so that when something is needed, we know exactly where it is so I (or someone else) can bring it in as soon as possible so we don't have a bunch of people waiting around on set for something to come in. It's actually kind of a lot of pressure, especially when the entire production is stopped and waiting for you. But it does help to anticipate what kind of stuff we'll need in a scene so we can keep that stuff close by and ready to go...
Because we are shooting this feature in something like 22 days, the pace is fast and furious, and it's really quite exciting for me. We've brought in a professional cinematographer who has done quite a bit of work and I'm pretty sure you have seen some of his work. I'm finding that I'm learning a lot more about lighting than I would have in some other position, say on the camera crew, since we, the grips, are the ones up on the ladder doing the fine adjustments of the lights under the direction of the DP. So it's like we're there when the decisions about what types of lights, and how they should be controlled (and to what effect), are being made.
For a while I was nervous about trying to become a DP myself -- I felt like I had gotten pretty good at working with the little light kits we used for our Film Gym projects during the first term, but I was intimidated by the multitude of different types and sizes of lights that I've had no experience with... but now working on this film with its many different sorts of lighting situations, I feel like I'm really getting to know what these other types and sizes of lights do, and what kind of light they put out...
And then there's the issue of C-stands. C-stands are used all throughout the film industry. They are incredibly versatile and are capable of holding objects at virtually any position at virtually any height (from right on the floor to however high your stand can reach) and at any angle. Very useful for setting "flags" and other accessories in front of lights to cut off unwanted light from hitting a wall, or the camera lens, or whatever else. Unfortunately, this ability to work at any height and at any angle also means they are incredibly unwieldy and tricky to master. Before I started working on this shoot, C-stands pretty much completely mystified me, but now that I've worked with them for like 12 hours a day for like two weeks, I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of them, which in and of itself is making this entire experience worth it since I won't be much use as a grip on a real film set if I can't work a C-stand!
I am really having the time of my life. Every night I come home and my body is completely exhausted and my feet are incredibly sore because I spend the whole day on my feet, climbing up and down ladders, and carrying heavy stuff -- but I never really notice these things when I'm on set. It's not until I get home that I realize how exhausted I am.
Apparently this is the first time my school as tried putting together a feature film like this, and in a lot of ways I feel pretty lucky -- I think I'm getting far more out of working on this one film for 5 weeks than I would have from working on 5 different short student thesis films, and I'm finding that I really enjoy gripping. I mean like even if I never make it to being a DP or anything like that, I think I'd be pretty happy if I was just doing this for the rest of my life. Making movies is awesome.
I've been putting up pics from the production as I've been taking them in the Giant Repository of Pics so don't forget to check up on them from time to time as those will be getting updated more frequently than this page will.

*UPDATE 4/2/2006* - Unfortunately, I've had to remove most of the pics from the web due to certain legal/copyright issues, so no, you won't be seeing them on the Giant Repository after all. Sorry!